Tuesday, June 30, 2015

When Emmanuel "Manny" Caulk arrives in Lexington in a few
weeks to take over as superintendent of Fayette County Public Schools,
several pressing issues will be waiting for him:

Emmanuel "Manny" Caulk

■ Construction of two new elementary schools and a new high school by 2017, with land bought for a third new elementary school.
■ Completing improvements to the district's financial system as a result of a critical 2014 state audit.
■
Improving the district's approach to low-performing schools as a result
of a recent warning letter from Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry
Holliday.
■ Implementing a new redistricting plan beginning in 2016.
■
Deciding how to handle several administrative positions that are open
at the district level. They include director of pupil personnel and
senior director of administrative services, a position created to
oversee the improvement of financial systems; director of technology;
director of special education; and senior director of equity, school
support and community engagement.

In an email message Tuesday,
Caulk said he wants to demonstrate "to the community that I'm a
committed leader who listens to multiple perspectives, learns, and makes
informed decision that will help (the district) become a world-class
system of great schools, and fosters a new level and spirit of community
engagement and support."

Caulk said he plans to establish a strong community presence quickly.

He
said he wants to learn crucial information about the district and
community by meeting with teachers, staff, students, city and state
officials, business leaders, post-secondary education leaders, nonprofit
organizations and families.

Caulk said he intends to "create a
network of critical contacts and resources that will support the
district's work of improving the achievement of all students by raising
the bar and closing the opportunity gap."

Caulk reiterated a
pledge he made during his interview last week: that he wants to ensure
that students who are proficient advance faster and that other students
achieve proficiency.

He wants to make sure that "we have great
teachers in every classroom and great school leaders in every building"
and that there are effective systems in place to support schools.

"What do I want people to know about me?" he asked. "I'm a champion for all children."

Caulk has been the superintendent of the Portland, Maine, Public Schools — Maine's largest school district — since 2012.

This
week, Portland school board chairman Sarah Thompson told the Portland
Press Herald newspaper that Caulk had brought several initiatives to
fruition.

She cited the board's work on a comprehensive plan for
the school system, a multi-year budgeting process and the creation of an
independent education foundation to raise money for the district, the
newspaper reported.

According to the Press Herald, Ed Bryan,
former school board chairman and part of the team that hired Caulk, said
the school board launched a national search in 2012 to find someone
with experience in urban schools.

Caulk's past accomplishments at
that point included improved math and reading scores when he was an
assistant superintendent in Philadelphia in charge of a division with 36
schools and 16,500 students.

The Portland school board voted
unanimously in November to extend Caulk's contract to June 2019, but
Bryan told the Press Herald in an article about Caulk's departure, "We
knew if we hired a rock star, there was a good chance they wouldn't stay
very long."

Caulk told the Herald-Leader on Tuesday that he is
committed to staying for the long term in Fayette County, where he was
offered a contract through June 30, 2019, with a starting salary of
$240,000.

"We are committed to FCPS beyond 2019," Caulk said.

"Lexington
is a destination city, a great American city, and Fayette County is a
destination district," Caulk said. He said he and his wife, Christol,
were impressed by the number of families they met who had moved to
Lexington planning on a short stay but had ended up staying and putting
down roots.

"As Lexington will be our new home, we hope to put
down roots and grow our marriage in the Athens of the West," he said.
The couple married June 17.

Frankie Langford, president of the
Fayette County Education Support Professionals Association, which
represents custodians and technical support staff, said members were
energized after meeting Caulk because they thought he "championed for
children" and "believes in the staff and community."

"He was very charismatic. He gave you that eye-to-eye contact and was really genuine and sincere," Langford said.

Stephanie
Bamfo, a rising junior at STEAM Academy, said she and other students
want to work with the new superintendent "to make our system better."

"Emmanuel
Caulk said publicly that his role is that of a servant leader and a
catalyst for change," Bamfo said. "It is exhilarating to think our new
superintendent is a man who is willing to serve and work with us to
bring what we want and need most in this district: change. We need to
make sure that students are not being force-fed policy but that we are
part of the process of making and implementing policies that are
beneficial to us."

New schools chief needs full support

Congratulations to the school board for a successful search
and to Superintendent-elect Emmanuel "Manny" Caulk for recognizing the
huge untapped potential in the Fayette County Public Schools.
Caulk, 43, will bring to Lexington varied and impressive experience as an educator and administrator.
And he will probably need every bit of it.

A
pair of state audits revealed troubling weaknesses in both the
financial and educational management of Kentucky's second-largest school
district.

The Fayette board, the interim superintendent and a
consultant have been working to correct problems and put better systems
in place.

But ultimate responsibility for making the most of public dollars and serving all youngsters falls now to Caulk.

To realize those goals, he needs the support of the whole city, but especially the support of FCPS' administrators and staff.

There's
no place for the petty rivalries and infighting that produced what the
state auditor last year called a "toxic" environment. That dysfunction
in parts of central office undermined sound financial management and
kept school board members and the public in the dark about district
finances.

More recently, state Education Commissioner Terry
Holliday laid out a long list of concerns about the administration's
capacity to lead school turnarounds and close achievement gaps. Caulk
must shore up those weaknesses or risk a state takeover of FCPS.

It's encouraging that Caulk was attracted to Lexington by the potential and doesn't seem put off by the problems.

Some,
including us, had feared that recent discord and the resignation of
former superintendent Tom Shelton might scare off good candidates. That
appears not to have been the case, another vote of confidence in FCPS'
potential and in Lexington.

Congratulations and thanks also to the
more than 500 people who attended sessions with the superintendent
candidates and the 4,375 people who filled out surveys about what they
think is needed in a superintendent. That level of public engagement had
to impress the candidates.

Finally, such "firsts" may not be as
significant as they once were, but it's worth celebrating that Caulk
will be Lexington's first black superintendent of public schools.

One of his biggest challenges will be making sure that children of
color and those from less fortunate circumstances finally get the
educations they need and deserve.

When Emmanuel Caulk was named chief of Portland’s schools in 2012,
the district was just emerging from a disastrous financial scandal that
forced out a previous superintendent and prompted a major shakeup of
policies and procedures.

The school board at that time wanted a superintendent with experience
in urban schools who would build community ties and refocus on core
issues, officials said. They chose Caulk, who was working in
Philadelphia as an assistant superintendent in charge of a division with
36 schools and 16,500 students, more than twice Portland’s enrollment
of roughly 7,000.

Three years later, Caulk is leaving Portland to be superintendent for
Fayette County Public Schools in Kentucky, a system with 40,000
students.

During his time in Portland, supporters say, Caulk established
important new ties to the business community and improved community
outreach, while using data-driven metrics to measure student
achievement. But critics say some of his outreach initiatives were only
distractions that didn’t directly improve education. They also note that
test scores have not improved across all grades, and that he had to
withdraw a “virtual school” plan after criticism.

“Certainly (Caulk) has taken a lot of things we discussed and started
and really brought them to fruition,” said school board Chairwoman
Sarah Thompson. She cited the board’s work on a comprehensive plan for
the school system, a multi-year budgeting process and the creation of an
independent education foundation to raise funds for the district.

“I think he brought a different approach to superintendent than
previous superintendents. Some people think it was good, some thought it
was bad. Different superintendents have different styles,” she said.

As for the next superintendent, Thompson said the board needs to hire
someone with a “style that fits into what Portland wants. Even though
we’re a big city in Maine, we’re a very close community.”

Caulk’s time in Portland has been marked by tight budgets and a
changing landscape that included a new charter school in town and a
series of education reforms enacted by Gov. Paul LePage’s
administration. Those reforms forced school districts across the state
to overhaul classrooms to align with Common Core standards, adopt new
proficiency-based graduation standards and, in Portland’s case, deal
with a shrinking state subsidy.

NOT SURPRISED BY EARLY EXIT

Caulk did not return calls for comment Sunday, but he had issued a
statement last week when it was announced that he was a finalist for the
Kentucky job. “I will miss Portland, but I’m eager to take on a new
career challenge that represents an opportunity for me personally and
professionally,” he said.Board members said they knew when they hired Caulk that he might
leave after his first contract term, which was originally due to expire
this year but was extended twice by the board until June 2019. And that
may happen again with his successor, said Ed Bryan, former school board
chairman and part of the team that hired Caulk.

The board purposely launched a national search in 2012 to find
someone with experience in urban schools, something they didn’t think
they could find in Maine, Bryan said.

“We knew if we hired a rock star there was a good chance they
wouldn’t stay very long. The job is so difficult, so multifaceted, it’s
almost set up for failure,” Bryan said. “The decision the school board
now faces is, do we go out again on a national search, and risk losing
someone in three years since we are an attractive first step for someone
looking for that first school district experience?”Among the “urban” characteristics that shape Portland schools,
officials said, is a high poverty rate among families and a large number
of non-native English speakers.

Portland is the state’s largest school district, and 58 percent of
students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, an indicator of
poverty, compared with the statewide average of 47 percent. Twenty-five
percent are English language learners, who need additional resources,
compared with a statewide average of 3 percent. The dropout rate is 3.2
percent, compared with 2.7 percent statewide.Thompson said she thought the board should launch a national search
again. “Portland deserves the best (either from) here or in another
state,” she said.

UPON ARRIVAL, A BUDGET CRUNCH

When he arrived in August 2012, Caulk immediately faced significant budget issues.

The governor issued a curtailment order in December and shifted teacher retirement costs from
the state to local districts, adding $1.5 million in spending to
Portland’s school budget. Caulk also had to add $1.7 million in catch-up
teacher raises in that first budget, and account for an unknown number
of students from the district who would attend Baxter Academy for
Technology and Science, a new charter school in Portland.

That $98.3 million budget cut
36 teacher positions and seventh-grade sports, despite being $4.7
million higher than the previous year’s budget and requiring a 3.7
percent increase in the school portion of the property tax.

Many of those positions and the sports programs were restored the
next year, and in his most recent budget, 17 positions were added. Over
his three years, Caulk increased the school budget by nearly $9 million,
from $94.2 million under former Superintendent James Morse to the $103
million budget approved by voters this spring.

At the same time, enrollment remained steady at around 7,000
students. The district has 1,248 employees, with 660 teachers and 160
education technicians.

ANALYZING STUDENT PROGRESS DATA

Former board members and colleagues said they are sorry that Caulk is leaving.

Like Thompson, City Councilor Justin Costa said Caulk moved the
district forward, but served during a time when the superintendent was
finishing work initiated by the board or previous superintendents.

“As superintendent, he followed through on those things,” said Costa,
a former school board member. “His role has been more about
refocusing.”

“I’m personally disappointed that he’s leaving as soon as he is,”
said Peter Eglinton, former chief operations officer and a former school
board member.

“I think the district benefited from his being with us. He brought a
perspective that was different and a style that was confident and
reform-minded. He was not afraid of questioning the way things were
done,” Eglinton said.

Eglinton and the other top administration officials all resigned at
various times in the past year, creating a complete turnover in Caulk’s
top staff. Among the resignations were the top academic, finance, human
relations and transportation officers. Exiting staffers said they were
leaving for better opportunities or personal reasons.

Several school officials noted that most of Caulk’s initiatives were
related to building ties to the community, adding avenues of
communication or using data to measure progress.

The state compiles extensive education data and makes it available
through its online data warehouse, and in recent years the Maine
Department of Education launched annual report cards for every school in
the state, which many educators found controversial.

Soon after the state’s report card was launched, Caulk introduced a “district scorecard” with much of the same testing data, plus additional measurements.

Caulk had already made a point of sharing data internally with school leaders, Eglinton and Bryan both noted.

“Early in his tenure he met with each principal of the schools and
had them review the student data with him,” Eglinton said. The data had
always been available, but reviewing it personally with the principals
sent a signal about Caulk’s priorities, he said.

“Data was not just reported, but evaluated,” he said. “And students were the primary objective.”

STRENGTHENING COMMUNITY TIES

Building up the district’s reputation with the local business and
philanthropic community was behind several of Caulk’s initiatives, Bryan
said.

“In Philadelphia he really relied on corporate partners, and he saw
there was a gap here. He reached out and he started to build those
relationships,” said Bryan, who serves as vice president of the Portland
Education Foundation, which raises outside funds for the district.

The board praised Caulk for starting a book club, speaking at the
Chamber of Commerce’s monthly Eggs and Issues breakfast, noting student
and teacher accomplishments during board meetings, starting an online
newsletter, and launching an online video series highlighting certain
district programs. He also initiated an annual online survey of parents,
and held public meetings and launched online tools to explain the
school budget process.

The board also praised Caulk for his “Principal for a Day” program,
when local executives come to the schools for a day. The program has led
to sponsorship of the district’s first STEM (science, technology,
engineering and math) exposition, and a donation of $18,000 in lab
equipment from Idexx Laboratories.

Some of those efforts won’t pay off for years, Bryan said.

“He’s laying the groundwork for what’s to come,” said Bryan, noting
that there have already been some successes. For example, when a local
philanthropic group wanted to invest $100,000 in the schools, it called
Caulk and asked how he would use it. He immediately said it would go to
summer school programs in three schools, Bryan said. That clear-cut
answer, with a specific program, is welcomed by donors, he said.

“We have had some relationships with the community, as a district,
that have been challenging at times,” said Thompson, the board
chairwoman. “(Caulk) did a fantastic job bringing them into the fold. I
think that is key, having a happy community.”

Some critics of the school district said those initiatives don’t reflect the right priorities.

“I don’t think it’s totally Manny’s fault, but I don’t think the
system has come up with any real framework for how to transform the
school department into a place that is focused on education,” said
resident Steven Scharf, a regular at school board meetings who often
urges fiscal restraint.

“All these other things that come along are distractions,” he said of the community outreach efforts.

Some of the district’s biggest changes in recent years came outside the classroom. The system built a new central kitchen, purchased a new central office downtown, and moved the West School and adult education classes out of a substandard building and into leased space.

Academically, Caulk launched innovations, mostly for small numbers of
students or individual schools. Among them was introducing a Spanish
immersion classroom at one elementary school and an Arabic language
class at one high school. The district’s pre-K program expanded slightly
from 83 students to about 100 students last year. An elementary school
adopted International Baccalaureate standards, and a high school adopted
an international focus.

SOME MISSTEPS AMID INNOVATIONS

Caulk also had some missteps, including having to reissue the district scorecard
after a contractor’s errors indicated vast test score improvements in
some areas that were incorrect. He also had to withdraw his plan to
launch a virtual school within the district, aimed at luring back
charter school students, after criticism from the state commissioner of
education and the city’s mayor.

Parent Tim Rozan said he wants the district to have a sharper focus
on districtwide academic initiatives to improve college and career
readiness, instead of “education bandwagon” ideas like early start
times, Spanish immersion, launching a new website and the district
scorecard.

“Bottom line, (Caulk) had absolutely no K-12 plan – either academic,
counseling or career or college prep – and refused to press for
individual skill achievement,” Rozan said. “I don’t see a plan.”

Academically, student test score trends in recent years have been mixed.

Districtwide scores on the New England Common Assessment Program, for
grades 3-8, have improved across the board since 2010, while
standardized test scores for grades 9-12, the Maine High School
Assessment, have decreased across the board.

Individual schools have markedly different results.

In elementary school math scores, for example, East End Elementary
School went from 25 percent of students scoring proficient or better in
2010 to 42 percent in 2013, and Riverton and Presumpscot schools also
showed gains. Every other elementary school showed lower scores over the
same period.

Complete test score data by school are available at portlandschools.org.

PLEASED WITH DISTRICT’S DIRECTION

Former chief academic officer David Galin said the district needs top
leadership that will continue to develop strategic plans to reach
measurable goals, with clear benchmarks along the way.

“I believe strongly that if you set rigorous goals, have really solid
instruction and really strong support for students, you can get so many
students to higher levels academically. That’s the hard work. It
happens in the classroom.”

Currently, the district regularly cites Caulk’s goal of making the
district “the best small urban school district in the country by 2017″
in news releases and public statements. The district scorecard notes
goals of improving test scores to higher percentages, but Galin
suggested that itself isn’t a goal, just an indicator of progress toward
a goal.

Thompson said the district’s comprehensive plan, completed in 2011,
needs updating, but remains the road map for future superintendents.

“I think this board is not disappointed with the direction we are
(going) in,” she said. “There may have been some things that Manny put a
personal touch on that may change, but the general course is not going
to change.”

Kentucky Auditor Adam Edelen is turning over to law
enforcement a special examination of the Fairview Independent School
District in Boyd County that found questionable spending by the
superintendent and excessive spending on athletics and non-instructional
activities.

Edelen found that $360,000 in general fund money was
transferred to school activity funds over three years with little or no
board oversight.

The 63-page report, which will be referred to the
Education Professional Standards Board and to law enforcement,
"describes a tiny district in far northeastern Kentucky that allowed its
athletics and other activities to deficit spend with no oversight, and
then plugged any holes with money that could've been used for
instructional purposes at the end of the year," a news release said.

The
report alleges that the superintendent, now retired, circumvented board
oversight, used a district credit card to pay for personal expenses and
authorized a 32 percent pay raise for one employee. A sporting-goods
contract was entered into without board approval, and the board did not
consistently perform superintendent evaluations required by state law.

Fairview district officials were not immediately available for comment Tuesday.

Throughout
the audit, several district staff reported that the superintendent, who
is retiring this month, intimidated staffers so they wouldn't question
his decisions or discuss his actions, the news release said.

"I
appreciate school pride and share the insatiable enthusiasm Kentuckians
have for their high school sports, but these were not responsible,
grown-up decisions that were being made," Edelen said.

The
district has fewer than 900 students, and 70 percent of them qualify for
free or reduced-cost lunch. Teacher salaries and benefits as a
percentage of total spending are the lowest among Kentucky's 173 public
school districts.

"Do these kids deserve to take a fun senior trip
and have well-supported sports programs that can compete with those in
bigger districts? Absolutely," Edelen said. "But that doesn't trump our
responsibility to provide them with a solid education and pay teachers a
decent wage."

The report detailed how excessive spending on the
football program probably resulted in the school district violating
Title IX requirements. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that
prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally financed
education program or activity. The district demonstrated a disregard for
the law by under-reporting football spending by at least $148,260 and
reporting inaccurate amounts for other sports, the news release said.

The Kentucky Department of Education will review the audit and will take appropriate action, spokeswoman Nancy Rodriguez said.

In
2013, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association handed down
sanctions to Fairview High School including the forfeiture of 19
football games over two seasons, having its 2012 Class 1A state
runner-up finish vacated, and the suspension and removal of the football
team from the 2013 state playoffs.

Kentucky State Auditor Adam Edelen announced Thursday that his office
will examine the University of Louisville Foundation, which has been
criticized for giving millions of dollars of deferred compensation and
other pay to university President James Ramsey and his top
administrators.

Ramsey last month denounced calls by several trustees for a such a review, saying they represented a challenge to his integrity.

But
Dr. Robert Hughes, the chairman of the board of trustees and the
foundation, said in a statement that the university "looks forward to
working with the auditor's office" to review the relationship between
the board and the foundation.

Edelen said in a news
release that the office would conduct an examination into the governance
and oversight of the foundation, which manages the school's $1.1
billion endowment.

"The
foundation is critically important to the university, but it must be
fully transparent," Edelen said. He also said the university's board of
trustees "must have primacy" in governing university activities funded
by the foundation. He said the review will take months to complete.

The
Courier-Journal reported in March that Ramsey, who is also president of
the foundation, had received $2.4 million in deferred compensation in
2012-13, while that year Provost Shirley Willihnganz got $1.8 million
and Chief of Staff Kathleen Smith got $1.3 million.

WDRB.com
later reported that some of the deferred compensation had been
backdated and credited with fictional investment returns, that
Willihnganz and Smith also had been paid by a separate nonprofit created
by the foundation, and that Ramsey had received $2.5 million from the
foundation in 2008.

In a special meeting last month,
Ramsey angrily denounced calls for a review of the foundation. But
several trustees said it was necessary. They included Steve Campbell,
who said he hadn't gotten information about compensation he'd requested a
year earlier, and board Treasurer Larry Benz, who suggested the
foundation has grown so complex — it has more than $1 billion in assets
and controls 10 corporations — that its processes and procedures should
be audited.

Trustee Craig Greenberg on Thursday applauded
Edelen's decision to review the foundation's management processes and
said he expects "everyone at the university will fully cooperate with
his work."

Edelen said in the release that Ramsey had
presided over a period of "significant growth and achievement," but "I
have heard from dozens of business and community leaders who believe
that a review by my office will be a constructive exercise, resulting in
easing tensions and a fact-based path for moving forward."

He
also said that given the university's dramatic growth and enhanced
academic reputation, the review is important to ensure the board of
trustees is in a position "to meet its statutory and fiduciary
obligations as the governing body of the institution."

Dissident
members of the board have stepped up their criticisms in recent months.
In April, citing news reports on the deferred compensation, Greenberg
and fellow trustee Steve Wilson called for the foundation, which
operates independently, to be placed under the supervision of the board.

Ramsey
denounced that proposal, saying it would "kill" donations to the
university because the trustees are appointed by the governor and donors
would consider the process politicized. The foundation, which is also
headed by Ramsey, raises money through private donations.

According
to the foundation's tax report filed last month, in 2013 it paid $1.86
million to Ramsey, $663,038 to Willihnganz and $319,146 to Smith.

The
board of trustees has hired a Chicago consulting firm, Verisight Inc.,
to produce a "competitive market review" of Ramsey's pay and that of
five other administrators. The report is to be presented to the board at
its meeting next month.

The company is being paid
$23,000 to review the compensation of the university's three executive
vice presidents, including its provost and head of health affairs, as
well as its senior vice president for finance and general counsel, along
with Ramsey.

Friday, June 26, 2015

The Fayette County Public Schools board had to cancel its
Wednesday interview with superintendent candidate Emmanuel Caulk because
district officials had failed to give the required 24 hours public
notice of the meeting.

Terri Breeden, left, assistant superintendent of the
Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia, and Emmanuel "Manny" Caulk,
the superintendent of the Portland Public Schools in Maine are two
finalists interviewing for the Fayette County superintendent's job.

School board chairman John Price said the
effect of that error is that instead of face-to-face interviews with
both candidates, the board will have to interview Caulk and Terri
Breeden via Skype for two hours each in closed session at a Saturday
meeting.

Caulk was in Lexington on Tuesday and Wednesday. Because of scheduling conflicts, Caulk could not extend his visit.

To be fair to both candidates, the board also cancelled its 8 p.m. Friday meeting with Breeden.

Board
members have identified two other strong candidates whose schedules
didn't allow them to come to Lexington this week, said Price.

In a closed session Saturday, school board members could decide to bring those candidates to Lexington next week.

Or,
after four hours of interviews with Caulk and Breeden and deliberations
afterward, board members could decide between the two of them and
announce Fayette County's next superintendent sometime Saturday.

That's
possible, Price said, but it depends on what the board sees in
Breeden's public interviews Friday and the Skype interviews Saturday.
And he said board members have to review what stakeholders — community
leaders, parents, teachers and students — say about Breeden and Caulk.

"That's why I say it will be difficult to make a decision on Saturday," Price said. "I'm not going to say it won't happen."

Price
said that when choosing a superintendent in 2011, the board deliberated
over three candidates from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m on a Saturday.

Price
said the latest search firm hired by the board, McNamara Search of
Lexington, is continuing to get reference checks on the four finalists.

The
candidates identified as finalists were first located by the search
firm Proact Search, which the board terminated when questions unrelated
to the search arose about Proact's CEO.

The school board is trying to find a replacement for Tom Shelton, who resigned last year.
Caulk
is the superintendent of the Portland, Maine, school district. Breeden
is an assistant superintendent in Loudoun County, Va.

The second announced finalist for the Fayette County superintendency is Loudon County (VA) Assistant Superintendent Terri Breeden.

Readers will notice that the public record on Dr. Breeden is much smaller than that of her competitor, Mr. Manny Caulk (about 50 pages edited down to 28). This is largely because Breeden has never held the superintendent's position, and therefore, was called upon less frequently to comment for the press. This is typical.

For example, when the Loudon County (VA) schools struggled with a budget crisis, last November - one so bad that the Board of Education was considering charging students to ride the school bus - Breeden was operating below the fray. So it's hard to know from the Leesburg press how she reacted at the time. Shocked, one might hope. But we don't know from news reports.

Still, the record finds Breeden taking positions on issues related to
instruction, assessment and accountability that should be of interest to the Board of Education.

Terri Breeden, a candidate for Fayette County
Public Schools superintendent, said she has a "theory of action" when
it comes to closing the achievement gap — the gap between low income, minority
and disabled students and other students.

It involves a rigorous curriculum taught by
high-quality teachers to engage students. Students need to know they are cared
about and supported, but also that educators have "high
expectations," she said.

Breeden, 59, has been assistant
superintendent of Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia for the past year.
She is one of two candidates being interviewed this week by the Fayette school
district; Emmanuel Caulk, superintendent of Portland, Maine, public schools,
visited Lexington earlier.

The school board is finding a replacement for
Tom Shelton, who resigned last year. Breeden met students, teachers and parents on
Thursday as part of the interview process.She said the fact that she is also a finalist
for superintendent of Charleston, S.C., schools does not mean that she does not
want to come to Fayette County.

"I would stay forever," she said.
"This would be a dream job."

Breeden's parents were originally from
southeastern Kentucky, and she has relatives here.Breeden's husband, Frank Breeden, came with
her to a reception at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School on Thursday.

Breeden said her work in large urban
districts prepared her to be Fayette County's next superintendent. The budget
for the department she leads is larger than Fayette County's."I understand growth. I understand the
achievement gap," she said.

"She's had experience in schools with a
pretty diverse set of students," said parent Chris Begley, a professor at
Transylvania University who met Breeden at the reception. "One of the
challenges here, I think, are the inequities and differences between schools.

"It's going to take somebody who is
sensitive to that and has had experience with that to be successful,"
Begley said.

Breeden started working in Loudoun — a school
district of 80,000 students outside Washington, D.C. — in 2014. She previously
was an assistant superintendent in Fairfax County, Va., a district of 181,000
students, and was director of grades 5-12 in the Nashville district, which has
84,500 students. Fayette's enrollment is about 40,000.

Breeden had been Fairfax County's assistant
superintendent for professional learning and training, and she taught
elementary and middle school in Nashville for 12 years and was an assistant
principal and principal.

The Rev. C.B. Akins Sr. said Breeden had
sterling past performances, and he said he did not doubt that she was
"very well qualified."

"She obviously has a passion for
education and a love for children," Akins said.

Parent Hazel Compton said Breeden told her
she would support specialized programs such as Locust Trace, where Compton's
son Dion studies agriscience.

"That was exciting to hear,"
Compton said.

Breeden's interview process continues Friday
with closed interviews with parents, students, teachers and community leaders,
a public forum and a news conference.

Terri Breeden,
a candidate for superintendent of the Charleston County School District, says
she’s seen “what works and what doesn’t work” in education. Now she wants to
bring that knowledge to Charleston.

Breeden is
the last of three candidates to formally interview this week for the position
and meet with the community. The school board has made each candidate available
for public interviews: Gerrita Postlewait was interviewed on Monday and Lisa
Herring on Tuesday. The Post and Courier has interviewed each candidate as
they’ve become available.

Before
earning her doctorate in school administration at Vanderbilt University,
Breeden taught for more than a decade in elementary and middle school
classrooms. She was a mathematics program specialist for Metropolitan Nashville
Public Schools and later assistant principal and then principal of two
Nashville, Tenn., public schools.

From 2002 to 2006, she was the executive director of learning support services
for grades 5-12 in Nashville. She then moved to Virginia, where she was an
assistant superintendent at Fairfax County Schools. She is currently the
assistant superintendent of instruction for Loudoun County Public Schools in
Northern Virginia.

Breeden
believes her experience in large school districts in Nashville and Fairfax
makes CCSD a perfect fit.

“As I look
at the district, I see a lot of really good things,” she said. “I don’t see
this as a district that needs to start all over. I think we just need to keep
moving forward and address the achievement gap.”

Breeden
talked about her support for school choice and dislike of mandatory,
high-stakes testing. (Answers have been edited for length.)

Q: What
about your past experience do you feel prepares you to helm the second-largest
school district in the state?

A: I’ve never worked in a small district.
Nashville was about 70,000. Fairfax County was about 160,000. The district that
I work in now is over 70,000. My personal budget in my division right now is
$564 million. I know about big schools systems. I know how to go to scale in
big school systems. I know how to communicate in big schools systems. My life
has been spent in big school systems.

Q: The
previous superintendent had a somewhat contentious relationship with the
members of the school board. What would you do to cultivate a cooperative
relationship with the school board?

A: I think it’s very important that I spend a
lot of energy on making sure I build trust and transparency and improve
communication, not just with the school board, but with parents and families
and community members. Their work is very important. There are very important
issues and there are differences of opinion. But I think building trust and
strengthening the relationship is the key to success and that’s usually done
through very strong communication.

Q: Many of
CCSD’s schools are heavily segregated by racial and socio-economic lines. What
would you do to improve diversity across the district?

A: I see diversity as a strength. It has
enriched my life and I think it enriches our children’s life and prepares them
for the future.

I think
you’ve got some things that are really great — the magnet program, the choice
programs that you have. I think children no matter what their background, they
tend to have certain interests. Like today, I visited a school where arts is
the emphasis. So I think those things help. Choice and voice in education is
very, very critical and I think that’s the successful way to diversify in our
schools.

Q: In recent
years, CCSD has expanded school choice by opening more magnet, Montessori,
charter and other nontraditional schools. What’s your position on school
choice?

A: I think school choice helps with student
engagement; I think it helps with parent engagement and community engagement. I
think that school choice is a good thing. I think though all schools have to be
high quality schools no matter if they’re choice, magnet or neighbor-zoned
schools. They need to be of high quality.

Q: Here and
across the country, more parents are opting their children out of high stakes
tests. What role do you think standardized testing should have in the
classroom?

A: When I was in Fairfax County and also
Loudoun County, I have been responsible for all the state assessment and accountability.
We’re doing far too much testing. Personally, one of the things I have
advocated for is sampling. I work very closely with the PISA test that samples
students. I don’t think we need to test every child every year in almost every
subject. ...I also believe that teachers through formative assessments in their
classroom already understand what their students know and are able to do. I
would like us to decrease the number of tests our students take.

The three finalists for
Charleston County schools superintendent will go through detailed interviews
when they visit the school district later this month.

Interviews will be held June 22 to 24 for the finalists: Charleston County
Deputy Superintendent of Academics Lisa Herring; former Horry County
Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait; and Terri Breeden, assistant superintendent
of the department of instruction for Loudoun County Public Schools in Ashburn,
Va.

Postlewait will interview on June 22, Herring on June 23 and Breeden on June
24. Each candidate’s interview will include school building tours and meetings
with school district staff.

Community receptions for the candidates will be held on each of the three days
from 4:15 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the school district’s main office at 75 Calhoun
St. in downtown Charleston.

Calls for the Charleston
County School Board to start over its search for the next schools chief
continued Monday, with local civil rights activists again questioning the
board’s intentions.

A group of around seven clergy, citizens and parents raised concerns about the
search for the next superintendent during a school board meeting after making
similar demands last week.

The Rev. John Paul Brown complained that the board’s “rush to the hiring of a
superintendent ... is not serving to bring about the best candidate by way of
transparency and public input besides allegations of secret meetings.”

The board has been under fire for its handling of the search since last month
after board member Michael Miller called for a new search after revealing
several board members met with former Horry County Superintendent Gerrita
Postlewait prior to the board beginning its formal superintendent search in
March. Postlewait was named one of three finalists for the job last week.

The other two finalists are Lisa Herring, Charleston County deputy
superintendent of Academics, and Terri Breeden, assistant superintendent
of the department of instruction for Loudoun County Public Schools in Ashburn,
Va.

The board is filling the Charleston County School District’s top spot after the
abrupt resignation of former Superintendent Nancy McGinley last year over her
handling of a post-game celebration by Academic Magnet High School’s football
team…

Many of the activists questioned whether Postlewait may already be the favored
candidate.

“When the time comes I want you to look us in the eye and explain how you could
go from meeting secretly one month and having the person be a finalist and then
become superintendent ... and that we should accept that from you,” the Rev.
Nelson Rivers III told the board.

The Rev. Charles Heyward urged the board to launch a new year-long, national
search for a superintendent, saying the current process “can never lead to a
healthy school district after it comes to a conclusion.”…

New finalist announced for Charleston County
schools superintendent

Terri L. Breeden, an assistant superintendent
for Loudoun County Public
Schools in Virginia joins Lisa N. Herring, deputy superintendent for
academics for Charleston County Schools; and Gerrita Postlewait, assistant vice
president of testing company ACT
as possible replacements for McGinley.

In mid-March, the district announced
three finalists — Herring, Postlewait and Acting Superintendent
Michael Bobby — but community groups, including the Charleston branch of the
NAACP, spoke out against the board’s selection process. A statement from the
branch earlier this month called the search “hasty, secretive and dubious.”

She has been an assistant superintendent for
the Department of Instruction at Loudoun County Public Schools since 2014.
Prior to that she was an assistant superintendent for Fairfax County (Va.) Public Schools.
Breeden has also served as an executive director of Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools
in Tennessee, a middle school principal, a high school assistant principal and
a middle school math teacher.

At the Charleston County School District, she
has served as deputy superintendent for academics, chief academic officer,
associate superintendent and executive director for student support services.
Herring was also the director of student support services at the Bibb County School District in
Macon, Ga., and previously was assistant director student of support services
at the DeKalb County School
District in Atlanta.

Gerrita Postlewait

Postlewait
holds a doctorate of education administration, a master’s degree in education
leadership and a Bachelor of Science degree from West
Virginia University, according to her resume (.pdf).

She has served as assistant vice president of
ACT in Iowa City, Iowa, for two years. Prior to that she spent seven years as
chief K-12 officer at the Stupski
Foundation in San Francisco and a decade as superintendent of Horry County Schools
in Myrtle Beach. She was superintendent of the Wetzel
County School District in West Virginia for six years.

The district’s board of trustees is
finalizing interviewing plans and is expected to announce the schedule on
Tuesday.

Local civil rights leaders renewed their calls for a new superintendent search
Friday, questioning the selection of a former Horry County superintendent as a
finalist for Charleston’s next schools chief.

The Rev. Nelson Rivers III and Dot Scott, president of the Charleston branch of
the NAACP, said picking Gerrita Postlewait as one of the three finalists for
the job confirms their earlier complaint that she was intended to be the choice
all along. Scott called her the “hand-picked candidate.”

The school board announced the finalists Thursday.

The furor over the validity of the search and Postlewait allegedly having the
inside track has been fanned by school board member Michael Miller’s revelation
that several board members met with Postlewait before the search for a
superintendent formally began in March.

“It seems our suspicions were justified,” Rivers said.

The other two finalists are Lisa Herring, Charleston County deputy
superintendent of Academics, and Terri Breeden, assistant superintendent
of the department of instruction for Loudoun County Public Schools in Ashburn,
Va.

The NAACP and others have touted Herring, who is black, as their choice to
replace former Superintendent Nancy McGinley, who resigned under fire in
October over her handling of a post-game
celebration by Academic Magnet High School’s football team…

Schools chief field down to 3 finalists - Herring, Postlewait,
Breeden in running

The Charleston County
School Board on Thursday named three finalists for superintendent, choosing a
longtime district administrator, a Virginia educator and a candidate likely to
be met with skepticism by those who have questioned the integrity of the search.

The finalists to replace former Superintendent Nancy McGinley are Charleston
County Deputy Superintendent of Academics Lisa Herring; former Horry County
Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait; and Terri Breeden, assistant
superintendent of the department of instruction for Loudoun County Public
Schools in Ashburn, Va.

The 48,000-student district, the second largest in the state, has been led by
Acting Superintendent Michael Bobby since McGinley resigned under fire in
October over her handling of a racially-charged
postgame celebration by Academic Magnet High School’s football team.
McGinley, the district’s longest serving superintendent, earned $226,278 in her
final year as superintendent.

The search for McGinley’s replacement has drawn criticism from local NAACP
leaders, worried that Herring wouldn’t get fair consideration because she’s
black, to teachers and community members who complained the board didn’t seek
enough public input.

Bobby withdrew from consideration for the post amid the mounting frustration
over the search process. Last month, school board member Michael Miller called
for the board to start the search over, claiming seven board members met with
Postlewait before she was named as a candidate in March. Local clergy and civil
rights leaders called for the seven board members to resign. The group has
filed a complaint with the state attorney general’s office asking for an
investigation into whether open meetings laws were violated.

The board completed interviews with nine semifinalists on Tuesday before
selecting Herring, Postlewait and Breeden. The board is finalizing interviews
for the three and will air the schedules Tuesday, according to the
announcement.

Reactions

School Board Chairwoman Cindy Bohn Coats said all three candidates have “amazing
resumes” with extensive experience in large, diverse school districts. Each
candidate, Coats said, meets the “preferred skill sets and qualities” the board
developed based on community input.

“I think we’re in a very good place with candidates who met our pre-existing
qualifications. I feel that the focus needs to be on qualifications and skill
sets of the leader and realize the board isn’t the most affected party in this,
it is the students.”

School Board member Michael Miller maintains the search should have started
over, although he said Postlewait is a “strong candidate.”

“I always thought from the beginning the process wasn’t transparent, it wasn’t
open and it wasn’t fair to all candidates. It’s unfortunate Dr. Postlewait or
any candidate would be caught in this. No matter who the superintendent is, I’m
going to have to work with her and we’ve got to still move forward.”

Dot Scott, president of the Charleston branch of the NAACP, said naming
Postlewait a finalist is “an affront” to all the concerns that have been raised
surrounding her candidacy…

Terri Breeden

Assistant superintendent of the department of instruction for Loudoun County
Public Schools, an 80,000-student school district, since 2014.

Assistant superintendent of professional learning and accountability for
Fairfax County Public Schools in northern Virginia from 2009 to 2014.

Assistant superintendent of professional learning and training for Fairfax
County Public Schools from 2006 to 2009.

Executive director of grades 5-12 for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools
from 2002 to 2006.

Started her career as an elementary school teacher in 1977 before serving as an
assistant principal and principal in Nashville, Tenn.

Botetourt official finalist for new post

Roanoke Times, The (VA) -
May 2, 2015 Author/Byline: Laurence Hammack

Botetourt County's superintendent
of schools is a finalist for the same job in Culpeper County.

{REST} Tony Brads confirmed Friday that he is one of three finalists for the
position.

The Culpeper County School Board recently announced that it chose three
candidates from a pool of 25 to interview for the job: Brads, Terri Breeden
and Marc Bergin, the Culpeper Star-Exponent reported.

Breeden is the assistant superintendent for instruction for Loudoun County
Public Schools; Bergin is the deputy superintendent of Moore County Schools in
Carthage, North Carolina.

Brads has been superintendent in Botetourt County for the past 10 years.

The Culpeper County School Board has said it would like to have its next
superintendent on the job by July 1.

School employee advocate
groups will not be allowed to intervene in a Lansdowne parent’s case to force
the state to disclose student testing data, a Richmond City Circuit Court judge
has ruled.

The Virginia Education Association and the Loudoun Education Association argue
that the release of Student Growth Percentiles that measure student improvement
across grade levels could unfairly target specific teachers.

But Judge Melvin R. Hughes Jr. ruled Monday that the organizations lack standing
to join the case, state education officials said. He also turned down requests
from the Virginia School Boards Association and the Virginia Association of
School Superintendents to intervene.

The judge is still considering the Loudoun County School Board’s request to
join the case as interveners, as well as the request from Virginia Attorney
General Mark R. Herring, filed on behalf of VDOE, to suspend enforcement of the
court’s order.

The myriad objections are in response to Hughes’ Jan. 9 letter of opinion
stating that the Virginia Department of Education must grant Brian Davison’s
request for Loudoun County Public Schools’ SGP scores—which have been collected
since 2011—by school and by teacher.

The opinion states that VDOE can produce a report that removes any information
that would identify specific students, but it does not object to teachers being
identified, which has school employee advocate groups concerned.

“Teachers will be singled out and labeled ineffective,” Dena Rosenkrantz,
attorney for the VEA, said in an interview. “There’s no way that one number can
sum up how effective a teacher is in teaching our students.”

Loudoun County school administrators have also warned about widely using SGP
scores to rank the quality of schools and teachers. The data only tracks
students’ progress in math and reading in grades 3-8, and does not account for
students who are new to Virginia or have transferred schools, they’ve noted.

Terri Breeden, assistant superintendent of Instruction, has described the
SGP scores as “a faulty data set.”

“I’d rather use data that doesn’t have so many disclaimers around it," she
told School Board members in a February committee meeting.

Davison, who works in business intelligence and software management, says he’s
pushed for the release of the information because it will help the public
identify ineffective teachers.

“Given that taxpayers are paying teachers’ salaries, particularly teachers
making in excess of $130,000 in private sector equivalent pay, I think taxpayers
have a right to know,” he said. “If the School Board is aware of ineffective
teachers, is it fair to ask a parent to send their kid to his or her class?”

School Board Explores Options For Girls Field Hockey Program

Leesburg Today (VA) - March 11, 2015 Author/Byline:
Danielle Nadler

Loudoun County School Board
members are considering the addition of girls field hockey to its varsity
sports offerings, but the players may have to get creative to pay for the
program.

A group of parents in December submitted an application to create field hockey
teams at each of the county’s 15 high schools this fall. After looking into the
interest level and the potential cost of a new sports program, school system
senior staff members recommended to the board Tuesday that it consider adopting
starting the program but not until fall of 2016.

“At this point the game schedule is pretty much set for fall 2015,” Terri
Breeden, assistant superintendent of Instruction, said.

Plus, a field hockey program could require as much as $570,000 in start-up
costs—a significant line item to be added to next fiscal year’s spending plan
this late in budget negotiations.

But during their meeting, board members suggested an option that would allow
girls field hockey to be adopted as an official varsity sport as early as this
fall at no cost to the school division…

Educators and state
officials are lining up to sign on to a lawsuit to oppose the release of
student testing data that they say could unfairly target Loudoun teachers.

After a vote following a closed session Tuesday, the Loudoun County School
Board Wednesday filed a petition to intervene in the case of Lansdowne parent
Brian Davison versus the Virginia Department of Education.

Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring, on behalf of VDOE, has filed a
motion to suspend enforcement of the court’s order. The Loudoun Education
Association, Virginia Education Association and several teachers also have
signed on as formal interveners in the case.

The slew of objections are in response to a Jan. 9 letter of opinion from a
Richmond City Circuit Court judge stating that VDOE must grant Davison’s
request for Loudoun County Public Schools’ Student Growth Percentile
scores—which have been collected since 2011—by school and by teacher.

VDOE posts Standards of Learning exam pass rates on its public website, but
does not post SGP scores. The SGP data are available to school administrators
through a secure web portal.

While SOL scores indicate whether a student has achieved minimum proficiency in
a given subject, the SGP data illustrates the progress a student has made
relative to the progress of students with similar achievement based on reading
and mathematics SOL exams, according to a VDOE description…

Terri Breeden, assistant superintendent of Instruction, described the
SPG scores as “a faulty data set.” During a recent Instruction and Curriculum
Committee meeting, she rattled off a lengthy list of measures the information
does not track, such as students’ progress in social studies and science and
special education students who take alternative SOL exams.

“So you’d be evaluating teachers based on this much data,” Breeden said holding
her fingers an inch a part.

Before taking a job in Loudoun last year, Breeden oversaw teacher evaluations
and student accountability in Fairfax County Public Schools, where she said,
“We were cautioned repeatedly to not use the SPG data unless we felt it was a
good data set. Well, it’s not.”

For the 20 percent of teachers’ evaluations that is based on students’ academic
growth, Breeden said, “I’d rather use data that doesn’t have so many
disclaimers around it.”…

School Leaders Debate Merits Of Full-Day Kindergarten For At-Risk
Students

On a Friday morning,
kindergartners’ eyes were glued to a counting music video on the classroom
smart board. With each set of 10, the song instructed the youngsters to count
while trying out a new dance move. With arms waving and feet marching, the
5-year-olds counted to 100.

A minute later, they were rattling off the sounds each of the 26 letters makes.
And five minutes after that, they were plopped down on a colorful carpet
listening to teacher Lore Keen read a book.

“We have to pack a lot in three hours,” Frances Hazel Reid Elementary Principal
Brenda Jochems said of the half-day kindergarten classes.

Loudoun County Public Schools is one of three school systems in Virginia that
does not provide a full-day program for every kindergartener. School
administrators have projected it would cost $52 million to build enough
classroom space to accommodate universal full-day kindergarten in the county.

But a proposal from Superintendent Eric Williams that would give 1,875 out of
the school district’s 5,000 kindergarteners access to a full-day program for a
much smaller price tag has prompted a local conversation about the merits of a
longer school day at such a young age…

During a Jan. 13 budget work session, School Board members Debbie Rose
(Algonkian) and Fox asked Williams and Assistant Superintendent for Instruction
Terri Breeden for data that would show whether Loudoun’s ELL
kindergartners who are in school six hours a day go on to be more successful in
school compared with those who attend for half of that time.

“This is meant to justify why we should do this going forward,” Rose said.

Those stats at a local level are not easy to come by, Breeden told them.
Loudoun first started offering full-day kindergarten to its most academically
at-risk population just a few years ago, so those students are now only in
second grade and will not take a Standards of Learning assessment until next
year.

“So because we don’t have that we have to look at national research,” she said.
“With ELL children, being in school all day long has proven more effective.
Just like learning any new language, with more early intervention, the language
is easier to pick up at a younger age.”

Chairman Eric Hornberger (Ashburn) agreed with Breeden but said the more
important point is that 25 percent of the county’s most needy kindergartners
are in school for half the day and not receiving any remedial services. “Which
means when they enter first grade they are at a huge disadvantage. That’s the
problem that this addresses,” he said. “There’s no way any of you can tell me
it would be better if those kids were at home to learn English. Research for
language acquisition doesn’t show that.” …

A full-day program would provide time to work more on language development,
math and science, as well as more on project-based learning, she added. “You
can cover so much more material in a full-day program. I feel it’s important
for all kindergartners, particularly for those in the underserved population.”

The School Board will hold a final public hearing on the superintendent’s
proposed budget at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22. The board is expected to adopt
a budget Jan. 29.

Loudoun County High School
parents have raised concerns about a grading practice they say holds their
children to a higher standard than students face at other high schools in the
county.

Under the leadership of new principal Michelle Luttrell, the high school
adopted a 100 percent summative grading practice. This means students’ homework
and classwork are not factored into their final grade, according to the
school’s website. Instead, “summative assessments” such as tests, quizzes and
projects, make up the final grade.

John Dalesandro and Dan Loper, who both have children at the Leesburg school,
believe the practice puts their students at an unfair disadvantage compared
with students at other Loudoun high schools that include homework and class
participation in the calculation of final grades.

“I’m fine with students being graded this way, but then all the schools should
do it this way,” Dalesandro said. “We were told at the beginning at the school
year that County was going to start 100 percent summative grading. What they
didn’t tell us was that we’re the only school that’s holding their kids to this
higher standard.”

He and Loper shared their concerns at a School Board meeting last month.

Nereida Gonzalez-Sales, director of Loudoun’s high school instruction,
acknowledged that the grading practices may be different among the county’s 14
high schools but said she could not confirm how many calculate homework and
class participation in final grades.

“I couldn’t tell you right now. That conversation is beginning right now,” she
said.

She noted that most administrators in the Instruction and Curriculum
Department’s top tier positions are new, including her, Assistant
Superintendent of Instruction Terri Breeden and Superintendent Eric
Williams. …

Whether homework and class participation are used only to prepare students for
exams or whether they are factored into the final course grade, Gonzalez-Sales
said it would not cause huge disparagements among students’ grades. “Even if
homework is graded, it makes up such a small percentage of their final grade.”

That’s the hefty price tag cited in recent years to build enough classroom
space to send every one of Loudoun’s 5,000 kindergartners to school for a
full-day program.

But School Board members heard during a work session Monday about an incremental,
and much less expensive, option that would extend full-day kindergarten to a
total of 1,600 students next school year.

Thirty-one elementary school buildings throughout the county likely have space
to provide 43 classrooms of kindergartners a full, six-hour school day. Nine of
the county’s 55 elementary schools already house extended kindergarten
programs.

For an estimated $3.45 million, the school district could hire the needed 20.5
full-time equivalent teachers and 20.5 teacher assistants, as well as eight
specialist teachers, to make it happen.

The presentation comes after state lawmakers and local families have increased
pressure on school leaders to craft a plan to provide more students with
full-day kindergarten. Loudoun, touted as one of the nation’s wealthiest
counties, is one of only three school districts in Virginia that does not have
universal full-day kindergarten…

Williams told board members, if they want to avoid constructing more classrooms
and the cost that comes with it—identified in past years as the largest
obstacle to providing full-day kindergarten to all students—it will need to
decide whether “homogenous grouping” is preferable to first providing full-day
kindergarten to ELL and low-income students.

“We could expand just as many classrooms but not give preference to the at-risk
population,” he said.

Terri Breeden, assistant superintendent of instruction, stressed that it
is those students who most need more time in the classroom. “I would hate to
not serve our neediest students,” she said, and called this model a phased in
approach until all schools could house full-day kindergarten programs.

Others asked whether there was much proof that extending kindergartners’ time
in school really makes a lasting impact. Bill Fox (Leesburg) said he was
“tentatively on board” with the model, but wanted data that showed that high
school seniors who were in full-day kindergarten are more successful than those
who were not…

State Panel Recommends More Flexibility, Funding To Assess Student
Success

The panel tasked with
revamping how Virginia measures student success has released its list of a
dozen recommendations directing the General Assembly to give school districts
more flexibility in how they assess students and more funding to do it.

The governor’s Standards of Learning (SOL) Innovation Committee, made up of
educators, advocates, legislators of both parties and business leaders, has
been working since July to craft a series of recommendations aimed at reforming
the current assessment system. And Loudoun County has had a seat at the table
with Terri Breeden, Loudoun public schools’ assistant superintendent of
instruction, and Del. Tag Greason (R-32), who represents Ashburn in the General
Assembly, on the SOL Innovation Committee.

The committee is recommending legislation and funding to give school divisions
incentives to identify alternative ways for students to accrue standard credits
outside of the traditional seat time requirements.

The committee also suggests that the state’s content standards be revised to be
“fewer and deeper” and emphasize essential skills needed for success in
“college, career, and citizenship.”…

The SOL Innovation Committee, formed after bipartisan legislation passed by the
2013 General Assembly, is expected to make more recommendations next year.

Average SAT Scores Up In Loudoun

Leesburg Today (VA) - October 13, 2014

Loudoun County Public
Schools’ cumulative score on the SAT rose five points this year, according to
data released by the College Board.

The average score among Loudoun students was 1,611, up from 1,606 in 2013.
Scores rose in critical reading by four points and mathematics by two points,
while dropping in writing by one point. Loudoun’s average score continues to be
well above Virginia and national averages of 1,520 and 1,471, respectively.

Participation in the exams also was up this year by 81 students—3,536 LCPS
students took the SAT this year compared with 3455 in 2013.

“We are pleased the number of students taking the SAT increased and that scores
in critical reading and mathematics also increased,” Assistant Superintendent
for Instruction Terri Breeden stated. “LCPS’s students are positioned to
be very competitive in the college admissions process due to exceeding the
Virginia and national means.”

Statewide, the critical reading score rose by three points this year; the math
score is up one point; and the writing score down a point. Nationally, the
critical reading score was unchanged from 2013, while math and writing scores
both dropped by two points.

Three weeks into the new
school year, the School Board is taking a closer look at the impact of cuts
made during last spring’s budget season. A scaled-down staffing framework has
given students less access to libraries and computer labs and has some
principals and teachers chipping in to dish up lunch in the cafeteria.

As it looked for savings from its initial $950 million budget, the board voted
to restructure its staffing model to assign fewer employees to smaller schools.
That’s translated to one dean instead of three for seven middle schools with
fewer than 1,100 students, no library assistants or technology assistants for
the seven elementary schools that have fewer than 300 students and no
administrative interns for the 42 elementary schools with fewer than 800
students.

The impact of those changes was the topic of discussion during last week’s
Curriculum and Instruction Committee. School Board members sat around a long
conference table with school district administrators, school principals and an
elementary school parent and asked: “So, how is it going?”

Jill Turgeon (Blue Ridge), School Board vice chairman and chair of the
committee, said she’s heard concerns from the small school communities about
their shrinking staff size, a decision that “on paper made sense—fewer
students, fewer staff—but practically doesn’t always work.”

“Now we’re looking at this with a holistic view, which I don’t think was done
during the budget process,” she said.

The new staffing framework, proposed by Chairman Eric Hornberger (Ashburn), was
adopted with the hope of not only saving money, but also balancing the level of
service provided to the county’s 73,233 students. As it was, a similar number
of library assistants, technology assistants and administrative interns were
assigned to elementary schools with more than 1,400 students and elementary
schools with fewer than 600 students.

“This is new. We want to know, did we hit the right numbers,” Assistant
Superintendent Terri Breeden said. “I don’t think we’re going to say
we’re smart enough to hit it smack on in the first try.”

For the county’s smallest elementary schools, fewer employees has meant
students only have access to the library two-and-a-half days a week, and that
the cafeteria now has just one assigned employee.…

News released last week by
the Virginia Department of Education has principals at three Sterling schools
smiling.

Three of Loudoun’s Title 1 schools—Guilford, Rolling Ridge, and Sugarland elementary
schools—improved test scores enough to drop the “focus school” label. The
designation as focus schools over the last two years required them to employ an
outside school improvement coach to help boost scores.

Along with required changes, the schools also embraced a new teaching model
that focused on team-teaching, in-house research and more time each day
reinforcing lessons for those students who need it.

“We are so proud of the students, parents, teachers, and principals of
Guilford, Rolling Ridge, and Sugarland,” Assistant Superintendent for
Instruction Terri Breeden said. “Raising achievement and ensuring all
students meet the benchmark is challenging, but through their collective
efforts they were successful and we celebrate them.”

The percentage of Rolling Ridge students meeting proficient math scores on
Standards of Learning tests in third through fifth grade jumped 11 points from
2012-2013 to 2013-14. English scores rose eight points in that time at Guilford
and Sugarland. Sugarland students’ math scores ticked up 15 points between
2012-2013 and 2013-2014, while Guilford students’ gained 12 percentage points.

In a statement, Loudoun Superintendent Eric Williams said he was pleased with
the progress but stressed the importance of not overemphasizing scores on state
exams.

“The SOL scores that play a key role in accreditation are just one part of
measuring student achievement,” he said. “We want our students to perform well
on state exams, but we also want them to demonstrate a mastery of content and
competencies that will serve them well in life after high school.”

In fewer than 60 days,
voters will be asked to support a bond referendum that includes $115.12 million
for the construction of the Academies of Loudoun. And school and county leaders
are working to spread the word about the details of the project.

The push to get public buy-in for the project was the focus of the Joint Board
of Supervisors-School Board Committee meeting last Thursday. Members of the
Citizen Volunteer Workgroup told the committee that they’re holding meetings
with parent teacher organizations, principals and students throughout the
county to promote the project.

“This is not your mom’s CTE program,” Terri Breeden, Loudoun’s new
assistant superintendent of instruction, told members of the joint committee
last week. “This is something very, very special.”

The Academies of Loudoun is slated to be built on a 119-acre site along Sycolin
Road, with plans to open in 2018. The new facility will combine expanded
versions of the existing Academy of Science and C.S. Monroe Technology Center,
as well as a new Academy of Engineering and Technology…

Terri Breeden, the county’s new head of instruction, said it
best. While explaining the school district’s staffing model to the Loudoun
County School Board, she noted “this information will be helpful with the
budget season on its way.”

Then she looked around the boardroom at 8:30 p.m. Thursday and said, “Oh my
gosh, it’s here.”

After wrapping up a tumultuous budget season in April, school leaders vowed to
start putting the scaffolding for their next budget together months earlier.
Almost a full year before the start of the next fiscal year, they’re already
making good on that promise.

During the board’s second FY16 budget work session Thursday, Superintendent
Eric Williams, who’s been on the job six weeks, revealed a long list of budget
estimates—projecting enrollment, expenditures and revenue increases—that help
paint an early picture of what it will cost to operate the county’s public
schools in the next fiscal year….

Loudoun County will have a
seat at the table as the state explores how to improve the way it measure’s
school success.

Terri Breeden, Loudoun’s newly appointed assistant superintendent of
instruction, is one of 30 individuals appointed by Virginia Secretary of
Education Anne Holton to the Standards of Learning Innovation Committee.

Breeden oversaw testing for Fairfax County Public Schools as assistant
superintendent for professional learning and accountability before she was
hired to oversee instruction in Loudoun's public school system. She began her
new role in Loudoun July 1.

The Standards of Learning Innovation Committee was formed as part of SOL reform
legislation signed into law last month and is tasked with making
recommendations to the Board of Education and the General Assembly on ways to
improve SOL assessments, student growth measures and encourage innovative teaching
in the classroom.

The new SOL reform law also promises 23 percent fewer exams for students in
grades three through eight and an overhauled test system that moves away from
multiple choice and toward questions that will better test students’ problem solving
and critical thinking skills…

Today, the McAuliffe Administration announced the members and first meeting
date for Virginia's Standards of Learning Innovation Committee.

Building on the work that began with legislation passed during the 2014 General
Assembly Session, the Standards of Learning Innovation Committee will take a
comprehensive look at Virginia's Standards of Learning system. After an
exhaustive review of stakeholder recommendations and applications, the Committee
members were selected by Virginia Secretary of Education Anne Holton. They will
be charged with making recommendations to the Board of Education and the
General Assembly on ways to further reform SOL assessments, student growth
measures, and encourage innovative teaching in the classroom….

The first meeting of the Committee will be held in Richmond on Tuesday, July
15, 2014.

Members of the Committee…

Terri Breeden of Fairfax, Assistant Superintendent, Fairfax County
Public Schools…

Terri Breeden will be Loudoun County’s next assistant
superintendent for instruction following Sharon Ackerman, who retires this
month after 15 years in the position.

The appointment is another major element in the transition of leadership in the
school system, with Edgar B. Hatrick retiring June 30 after 23 years as
superintendent.

Breeden will come to the Loudoun school system from Fairfax County Public
Schools where she serves as assistant superintendent for professional learning
and accountability. Loudoun’s incoming Superintendent Eric Williams selected
Breeden for the position—arguably the second most influential in the school
system—and the School Board approved the hire during its meeting last night.

“We’re very, very excited to bring your experience and your knowledge on board
with Loudoun County,” School Board member Bill Fox (Leesburg) said. “ So
welcome.”

Breeden has more than 30 years of experience in education, 12 of which have
been in the classroom teaching first through eighth grades. She’s served as an
elementary teacher in a private school in Nashville, TN; as a math teacher at
East Middle School; mathematics program specialist; assistant principal for
Hillsboro Comprehensive High School; principal of John Trotwood Moore Middle
School and executive director grades 1-5, all for the Metropolitan Nashville
Public Schools.

In 2006, she moved to Fairfax County where she’s served as the school system’s
assistant superintendent for professional learning and training and now as
assistant superintendent for professional learning and accountability.

Students at 10 Fairfax
County high schools performed better than the U.S. average on 2012 tests that
also compared schools from Canada and the United Kingdom, school officials said
March 21.

The test results will help county school officials develop better means of
educating students so they can thrive in the global economy, said Superintendent
Jack Dale.

“We’ve got to prepare our kids for the world,” Dale said.

Principals at 10 Fairfax County schools agreed to allow 15-year-old students to
participate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s
(OECD) 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Pilot Trial…

PISA tests usually cost
$250 per student to produce and score and students usually receive $25 apiece
for participating. But under the pilot tests, Fairfax County schools did not
have to pay to participate and students did not receive compensation, officials
said.

School officials did not cherry-pick the cream of the crop to take the
two-hour-long tests, said Terri Breeden, assistant superintendent for
professional learning and accountability. Instead, testing company McGraw-Hill
chose which students would participate.

Students answered 141 questions measuring their knowledge of reading, math and
science and provided additional information about their socio-economic
circumstances…

Because Fairfax County
Public Schools (FCPS) receives 52.2 percent of the county’s disbursements,
School Board members should take steps to improve the independence and
expertise of the school system’s auditing efforts, members of the McLean
Citizens Association’s (MCA) board of directors said Nov. 7.

The MCA board passed a resolution calling on the School Board to add at least
two more community representatives to the School Board Audit Committee,
provided that the new members qualify as financial experts under standards
defined by the Government Finance Officers Association. The new representatives
also should be independent of the school system’s management, MCA members said…

Fairfax County Public Schools’ Office of Internal Audit does not examine the
school system’s policies, funding, staffing and other resources to ensure they
are being implemented according to the School Board’s intent, MCA members said.

Those duties instead fall to the school system’s Department of Professional
Learning and Accountability, which is led by Assistant Superintendent Terri
Breeden.

If the School Board establishes an Office of Financial and Program Audit, it
should be directed by an independent auditor, whom voting audit committee
members would hire and evaluate, MCA members said.

The new office would “go beyond due diligence and look more closely at programs
within the school system, make sure the money is being spent on the programs,
and that the programs are what the School Board thought they would be and are
effective,” said Louise Epstein, MCA’s recording secretary.

But Jane Strauss, the School Board’s Dranesville District representative, said
the board already has an independent audit committee, which she chairs, and
that the group has hired Theresa Weatherman to serve as the board’s auditor.
The auditor operates independently from the superintendent and the rest of the
school system, she said.

The whole School Board examines student achievement, but the board’s audit
committee examines financial matters and business processes, Strauss said. She
defended the presence of staff members on the committee, saying they needed to
keep informed in order to implement changes….

Russo to pursue SOL proposal

Richmond Times-Dispatch
(VA) - August 18,
2011

Henrico County schools
Superintendent Patrick J. Russo is not giving up on a plan to change the way
Virginia Standards of Learning assessments are administered, even though the
initial idea was quelled by state education officials.

In a letter dated Aug. 1, state Board of Education President Eleanor B. Saslaw
wrote that the proposal submitted by Russo and his colleagues in the city of
Virginia Beach and Albemarle, Fairfax and Roanoke counties will not be included
on the agenda for the state board's meeting next month and she sees nothing to
be gained, at this point, from further committee-level discussion.

The five superintendents, who collectively oversee about 30 percent of the
state's student population, want the flexibility to administer the tests to
high-achieving students earlier in the school year as well as the ability to
give students who don't pass it the opportunity to take the test again.

"While all Board members are open to new ideas on assessment and
flexibility, none believes that the Board's questions about the proposal have
been addressed with sufficient detail," Saslaw wrote.

Russo said the school systems will seek more comment on the proposal from staff
and parents to gauge support for the plan. State board members believe teachers
should be included as well.

He stressed in a phone interview Wednesday that the proposal is a pilot
program, which would begin on a small scale to determine whether it makes a difference
and affects students' ability to master a subject versus taking a test just
once.

The superintendents said in May that the flexibility would allow students to
show proficiency earlier in the school year and move on to focus on subject
areas for the remainder of the year.

Teachers then would be able to focus on helping students who fail the test
prepare better for the retest and improve performance.

"I was very surprised that we got not even a small pilot," Fairfax
County Assistant Superintendent Terri Breeden told The Washington Post.
"If you can't even begin with a small group, that's disheartening."

Saslaw's letter came 10 days before Virginia Superintendent of Public
Instruction Patricia I. Wright called for an overhaul to the federal No Child
Left Behind Act after fewer Virginia schools met or exceeded Adequate Yearly
Progress benchmarks based on the 2010-11 SOL testing.

On the heels of Wright's call to change the federal law, Russo said flexibility
in when tests are administered and the ability to retest should be part of that
reform.

However, questions remain about the specifics of the proposal, Saslaw wrote,
noting that oral and written responses from the superintendents "lacked
the practical details" needed to alleviate the board's concerns about
unintended consequences and the potential impact multiple testing may have on
instruction for students who fail early tests….

Williamson County School Head Search taking a mulligan

Nashville Examiner (TN) -
May 14, 2009 Author/Byline: Truman Bean

I am not a big fan of paying
search committees to do the job that managers and elected officials have under
their charge. They tend to just provide the cover for the ones in charge, who
already have a particular individual in mind. Like Sands Through the Hour Glass
-- So Is the Williamson County School Board from Brentwood Watchdog

School board to try again to find superintendent

By Carole Robinson, Staff
Writer

After going through the
process of searching for a superintendent since last October, the Williamson
County Board of Education decided Monday night to do it again, giving Ray & Associates another chance by
extending the contract 45 days in the hope the district will have a
superintendent before the start of the new school year.

The board also invited
interim superintendent Dr. David Heath to apply for the position this time. In
the first go-round the search committee made an informal request that Heath not
apply, according to Search Committee Chair Terry Leve. “The request was made
because of concern that it would discourage applicants if they thought it was a
foregone conclusion that he was going to be chosen and we were just going
through an exercise,” Leve said. “He honored that request.”

Although board members did
not dispute the quality of finalists Dr. Terri Breeden of Vienna, Va.
and Dr. Bret Jimerson of Grand Prairie, Texas, during the discussion, several
said their lack of high-level leadership experience was “troublesome.”

“I don’t want to start with
a rookie,” said Board Member Gary Anderson after making a motion to “not select
either of the two finalists,” just moments into the meeting. Anderson’s motion
did not garner the votes to pass, but after further discussion, in which some
members expressed interest in exploring both candidates further, a similar
motion 15 minutes later could not get the necessary seven votes to continue
discussions with either candidate, thus ending that search and prompting
another......

Down to 2 Candidates for Williamson County's Top Education CEO

Nashville Examiner (TN) -
May 1, 2009 Author/Byline: Truman Bean

A very important county wide
office that is getting little attention from Williamson County Media, and to be
fair, the blogging community.

Two candidates left for schools director position

FRANKLIN— Two candidates remain in the search for the county's next director of
schools.

The school board voted Thursday night to invite Terri Breeden of Fairfax
County Public Schools in Virginia and Bret Jimerson of Grand Prairie
Independent Schools in Texas back for more interviews with parents, staff and
students.

A third candidate, retired Boone County
Schools Superintendent Brian Blavatt, was eliminated. Breeden, who lived in
Williamson County for some time and worked in Metro Nashville Schools, was
hailed as a bright and knowledgeable candidate. Jimerson, who has multiple
advance degrees, impressed board members with his love of learning. The
candidates return Thursday and Friday for full days of tours, meetings and
receptions. The public is invited to the receptions that will be held at
Centennial High School. Times will be released later.

115 Principals May Soon Retire - Sixty percent of the school
system's principals will be eligible for retirement in five years.

Burke Connection, The
(VA) - August 10,
2006

As principal of Halley
Elementary School in Fairfax Station, Janet Funk has led the school since its
opening in 1996 and has mentored seven other Fairfax County elementary school
principals.…

Funk is among 115 principals in the Fairfax County school system who will be
eligible for retirement within the next five years.

In a school system with 194 principals, that could mean that 60 percent of the
county's school leaders will soon need replacements….

Kevin North, the school system's assistant superintendent for human resources,
said the spike in retirement eligibility has been underway for the past few
years. As 2011 approaches, they expect between 19 and 23 principals will step
down each year.

"Being a principal is a tough job," North said. "They have to
deal with a lot of constituencies and they have to keep a lot of balls in the
air at all times."

Principals can have a profound impact on student achievement, said Richard
Flanary, director of professional development services at the National
Association of Secondary School Principals in Reston.

"There's a growing body of evidence that shows that the principal's role
is significant," Flanary said. "They have a substantive impact on
achievement within a school."…

THE COUNTY'S aging school leadership is part of a wider trend, as the baby boom
generation across the nation finds itself on the cusp of retirement.

According to a March 2006 demographics report, Fairfax County will be home to
more than 160,000 residents over the age of 60 by the end of the decade - an
increase of 44 percent over the 2000 census….

In April, the school system hired Terri Breeden - a former school
administrator from Nashville - to head up its newly created Department of
Professional Learning and Training. A chief responsibility of the new
department will be to identify and nurture future leaders, Dale said.

Fairfax Schools...

Arlington Sun Gazette
(Merrifield, VA) - May 11,
2006

News of the achievement of
local students and members of the Armed Forces:

* The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) has named 32 Fairfax County
Public Schools students winners of $2,500 National Merit Scholarships….

* The Fairfax County School Board has appointed Terri Breeden as the
school system's new assistant superintendent of the Department of Professional
Learning and Training. Breeden's appointment will be effective May 22.

Breeden most recently served as executive director, grades 5-12, for the
Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. She previously served as a principal, an
assistant principal, a mathematics program assistant, and a math teacher in
Nashville.

KSN&C

KSN&C

KSN&C is intended to be a place for well-reasoned civil discourse...not to suggest that we don’t appreciate the witty retort or pithy observation. Have at it. But we do not invite the anonymous flaming too often found in social media these days. This is a destination for folks to state your name and speak your piece.

It is important to note that, while the Moderator serves as Faculty Regent for Eastern Kentucky University, all comments offered by the Moderator on KSN&C are his own opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of the Board of Regents, the university administration, faculty, or any members of the university community.

On KSN&C, all authors are responsible for their own comments. See full disclaimer at the bottom of the page.

Why This Blog?

So far as we know, we only get one lifetime. So, when I "retired" in 2004, after 31-years in public education I wanted to do something different. I wanted to teach, write and become a student again. I have since spent a decade in higher ed.

I have listened to so many commentaries over the years about what should be done to improve Kentucky's schools - written largely by folks who have never tried to manage a classroom, run a school, or close an achievement gap. I came to believe that I might have something to offer.

I moved, in 1985, from suburban northern Kentucky to what was then the state’s flagship district - Fayette County. I have had a unique set of experiences to accompany my journey through KERA’s implementation. I have seen children grow to graduate and lead successful lives. I have seen them go to jail and I have seen them die. I have been amazed by brilliant teachers, dismayed by impassive bureaucrats, disappointed by politicians and uplifted by some of Kentucky’s finest school children. When I am not complaining about it, I will attest that public school administration is critically important work.

Democracy is run by those who show up. In our system of government every citizen has a voice, but only if they choose to use it.

This blog is totally independent; not supported or sponsored by any institution or political organization. I will make every effort to fully cite (or link to) my sources. Please address any concerns to the author.

On the campaign trail...with my wife Rita

An action shot: The Principal...as a much younger man.

Faculty Senate Chair

Serving as Mace Bearer during the Inauguration of Michael T. Benson as EKU's 12th president.

Teaching

EDF 203 in EKU's one-room schoolhouse.

Professin'

Lecturing on the history of Berea College to Berea faculty and staff, 2014.

Faculty Regent

One in a long series of meetings. 2016

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